Web of the Weaver: Chapter 18

There will probably be another chapter soon--this one is short, mainly because I can't find a good way to  link it to the next one. 

**** 

The Undersiders were rampaging through the lot, causing an ever-growing amount of chaos. Some men had pulled out guns, but more were just running. The big robot…thing, looking like some kind of steampunk nightmare was tossing refrigerators and other items around.

Why?

I’d never heard of them doing anything like this. They were supposedly small time thieves, but there was nothing to steal here, save for the drugs, and they didn’t seem interested in them.

And the motorbikes were getting—Motherfuck! Some of them had two men on them, and they were stopping and letting their passengers debark and head for shooting positions…

Including the building I was in.

I hadn’t been planning on fighting, but now…

I lit the fuze on several of my smoke bombs, tossing them around the room, and in moments the air was opaque as I headed downstairs. Below me, the door opened and a surprised curse met the falling air.

“Cape!” someone shouted.

Well how could they—no, they’re just thinking of the worst possible outcome.  I moved down—they couldn’t see me, but I could sense and locate the two men. The motorcycles had left, heading into the scrimmage.

“Brutus, Hurt!” an angry voice called.

“Bitch, don’t hurt them that badly, we’re not here for that!”

“Fuck that, they work for Hookwolf!”

Gunshots were sounding, some bouncing off of the suit of armor, others going wide as their owners suffered odd jerks.

That was Regent’s thing, if I remembered right.

While I was thinking, I ducked into a little broom closet, the door long since fallen. A moment passed and then the smoke brightened slightly, the only sign that a man was holding a powerful flashlight.

He and his partner passed me, hands on the wall, cursing as they headed up.

I didn’t wait, right after they left my line of sight I was out, heading down to the ground. Meanwhile, I sent orders to my bugs.

The cameras were detached and swarms carried them to where I could get them, but the tracker on Greens car…

No, detaching it and using it to track the Undersiders was a temptation, but it looked like they had at least a single new Tinker, and I didn’t know his abilities. And I didn’t have enough information about the rest of them. I just had the bugs start to bring it lose so that it would fall off on the way back to his home.

On the other hand…They couldn’t be that bright.

Or were they? Getting in the Empire’s face like this didn’t seem smart, not unless they were working for a different goal.

Provoke a response? Why? What do they have to gain for it?

There was something seriously weird about that.

Lung? Sure, I could see him. Weakening the Empire would be of benefit, but an independent group of small-time thieves?

Thieves didn’t seek out fights. For a thief, the best outcome was an empty house, because he didn’t want a fight.

While I was thinking, I moved through an alley, bugs keeping watch. Once I had to duck back down as a man came running through, screaming something about Bitches and dogs.

And then the Undersiders were retreating, leaving wrecked appliances and torn baggies of drugs. My bugs didn’t detect any blood on them, so evidently all the bullets had missed or hit people who didn’t care about them.

I didn’t wait, moving in the opposite direction. As riled up as the Empire was likely to be, I’d cut a wide loop before I re-entered the populated part of town from another direction.

Clouds of bugs flew over me and I held out my hand, as the small cameras were deposited in them. I’d be late tonight, So I’d work on them tomorrow, but I could at least type down a transcript of what I’d seen and heard while I was in bed.

Typing and reading bugs were socool.

*****

Dad lectured me for being late, and I confessed to just spending a little time out wandering along the late night shops on the boardwalk. That calmed him down, a little, since the Boardwalk was a tourist trap that had good security. I still got a warning out of it, which was… more attention than he’d paid for a while.

But I found I couldn’t get to sleep. So  I waited until dad was asleep, turned on my monitors, and reviewed my information.

The Undersiders had charged in before I’d planned to be finished, but I still got images of the drugs, some with the serial numbers visible.

20104-A, 403291A-R5  others, none of them made sense.

Well, it’d be a bit too much good luck to find baggies with ‘stolen from the US Government, if found please return.”

I snorted, then laughed a little at the image of a Lost and Found with Kaiser reaching into the slot and pulling out drugs.

It was…

Huh. Was I laughing more?

Anyway.

I couldn’t make use of them. Not directly. I had a feeling that anyone making online inquiries using the serial numbers and IDs of stolen drugs might find themselves attracting the wrong kind of attention.

So why not attract the rightkind of attention?

I’d have to do it tomorrow. No way was I going to let mycomputer get anywhere near this job. Fortunately, I’d written a routine for one of Winslow’s computers, one that would securely erase the files associated with my work when I transferred them over to the USB stick.  It actually wasn’t hard. I’d gotten it out of one of my books. I’d never dream of trying it against a secure computer—at least right now—but Winslow’s weren’t secure.

And unlike the library, Winslow had no interior cameras looking atthe computers.

Beyond that, there wasn’t much. Some shipping manifests for the refrigerators. But…

Either he’d stolen them or bought them, either one would be enough of a data point to let people with the right tools track the Empire’s operations outside of the city.

Which I couldn’t do.

So I’d send them to those who could.

With that, I started planning my operation tomorrow. After all, it wouldn’t do to leave a bad impression.

*****

School crawled. I was ahead of everything now, and I could be doing so much more.

But I couldn’t do anything to risk drawing attention to the school. The principal already knew that it was likely a parahuman was among the student body, and I’d promised I wouldn’t draw attention to the school—or myself.

Which I wouldn’t. In Ms. Knott’s class, I transferred the data from my USB to the cheap one I’d bought on the way to school, then triggered the program to wipe any evidence of the transfer.

Good.Next it would be time to send my message.

*****

I used some of my money to have a nice meal at a decent cafe, notFugly Bobs, after school. Most importantly, the cafe was near where PRT officers commonly ate lunch. I sat, easting, while under the street, a cluster of insects moved the USB.

PRT street vans weren’t tinkertech gear. They weren’t sealed. They had vehicles like that, but they were hard on the roads, expensive, and only used for serious patrols or in an emergency.

Spiders spun thread, ants and roaches pulled on it, and soon the USB was pulled into the vents, and then from there into the empty car, the men enjoying a meal at a diner a little further up. Nobody was around the van, nobody was paying attention.

And the USB was soon placed in the seat. I finished my meal and left. I still had a few minutes before the PRT trooper’s lunch break was over.

Now to make a phone call from a phone I’d already checked for any video cameras.

A cluster of insects rose up around me, shielded from the street by an empty car. I gloved my hands in disposable gloves and picked up the phone, the bugs forming my voice.

“PRT, may I help you?”

“This is Orb Weaver. Unit 22. I have left a present of information in the driver’s seat. A USB. You will find the Empire’s doings of great interest. Good day.”

Then I hung up and left. I walked down the street, not bothering to move fast, just Taylor Hebert, student. There was a cluster of men around the van, and moments later, I heard the sound of a motorcycle on the street, the crowd around me craning their necks as Armsmaster drove up.

I did the same. Breaking pattern was the worst thing you could do, according to my books, and trying to run off alone, if someone could track you, just made it easier for them. Even if they had some method of localizing the phone, even if they could track my foot prints… I’d just vanished into the crowd.

Which was weird. When I first started, I’d assumed that calling from the middle of the night or a deserted phone was the best way to stay safe.

Turned out it was the opposite.

Now Armsmaster had done something with his halberd and opened the door with it, a small arm extending from it and coming out with the USB clutched in the claw before it was placed in an evidence bag.

I let the crowd jostle me down the sidewalk, the press of people wanting to get a picture pushing those of us who had our chance away. A few minutes later, I was out of the press and heading to the library.

After all, that’s what Taylor Hebert usually did, wasn’t it?